This is a classic government mistake, trying to eliminate a threat in one area causes needless problems in another area. Ever since 9/11 the airport security people have gotten a blank check. TSA seems willing to buy any new scanner invented, safety tests will be done later if ever. It's been a long time since we've heard of an airplane disruption on a domestic flight... do we really need to up the specs on this technology?

Not that I disagree with your premise, but wouldn't you think that someone that was the former head of a government security agency might know a bit about the needs of that agency and be able to start a company that can provide for those needs? Of course companies in a free market are much less likely to behave in a devious business, but once they deal with the government it's hard to see anything but favors and back scratching going on. When you don't actually have to produce much of anything and still g

wouldn't you think that someone that was the former head of a government security agency might know a bit about the needs of that agency and be able to start a company that can provide for those needs?

No, not particularly. Maybe a lead engineer, but not the paper-pusher at the top. He can be expected to know exactly what papers to push to convince the agency buy something though.

but wouldn't you think that someone that was the former head of a government security agency might know a bit about the needs of that agency and be able to start a company that can provide for those needs?

Yes, I know, it's common practice, but profiting from an industry that you have or had official power over is textbook corruption. Participating in a bidding process where you have special inside knowledge is corruption, and it doesn't get more special or inside than "I was head of the agency last week."

Close enough, actually. I've read something like that before. Here's [wcvarones.com] the top link from Google.

Long story short, Michael Chertoff, former chief of the DHS under Bush, is the guy who initially advocated the installation of the scanners. It now turns out his private lobbying company has Rapiscan (the gov't rape scanner supplier) as a client.

The safety tests are being performed as I type, using passengers as test subjects. In 10 to 20 years we should have some good data about long term irradiation of people with these expensive security placebos.

Although I'm sure the baggage screening machines are shielded, they are still open on the end with just loose flaps. There must be X-rays scattered all over the place from those. Every radiology tech or dental assistant that I've ever met stands behind a lead panel for every X-ray, and they are only doing them once every 15 minutes or so. The baggage screening runs almost continuously.

In this case, stupidity is probably your friend. In the amount of time these devices have been operating it would be most suprising that cancers would have developed in detectable clusters as a result of any escaping radiation. However, the emotional response to personal tales of "cancer" and "radiation" means that the great unwashed are much more likely to clamour for the withdrawal of the scanners on the basis of anecdotal evidence than on any genuine scientific exposition of unfitness for the alleged pur

Also, the "fix" might be a precedent for other radiation cases which are factually bad (the nonsense about cell phone and WiFi emissions causing cancer, headaches and hippie-ism).

I have a very hard time being sympathetic to TSA agents, but I want this one handled right. Not for the sake of the brownshirts, but because of the potential for bad science. The TSA is already bad policy; let's not compound bad policy with bad science.

That's if it's only a minor story. If we make this a Big Fucking Deal [tm], get the media talking about it on a broad level. "Cancergate"-level.

And the presidential election campaigns are just getting started. If we make this an election issue... oh man. Flawless victory.

Here's the thing - nobody really supports them. Nobody with real power, at least. The only thing keeping them in place is the general apathy of America - we have not, collectively, given a shit about it. It's like the WTC reconstruction

I guess it's time for the TSA to shout in unison that all this "protection" they're giving us, is for "the children?" It will be interesting when we start seeing TSA minions wearing lead protectors while patting 95 year olds for their diaper?

What was done to that woman was atrocious. However condamning the rank and file TSA employees does nothing; they're just trying to make ends meet like everybody else, and in general they too loath what they have to do as a part of their job. People at the top that are responsible for all these nonsense are utterly indifferent to what happens, and until they're held accountable, nothing changes.

They signed up for the job, knowing that was what they were going to be told to do.

They could refuse to grope people, out of moral convictions about inappropriately touching total strangers. Of course, anyone with those sorts of convictions would never have signed up to be a TSA agent.

Sorry, but I feel no sympathy for them. The TSA officers who stand around groping people are not contributing anything of value to society, and deserve more scorn than they receive. We are talking about people who signed up to grope children, harass elderly women, and generally undermine whatever dignity America citizens had left.

Someone posted about working as a TSA employee on here a few days ago. He said he worked there for a few months. Most of the TSA employees don't enjoy their jobs and get no pleasure out of screwing with passengers.

A job is a job. It's unskilled work that will pay the bills, so people are going to take it if they can get it. If you understand that TSA employees probably hate their job as much as you hate them doing it, show them some respect and they'll be nice to you.

There is a basic level of respect you should show to everyone, until they do something to make you stop. At the most fundamental you should have respect for human rights, but I prefer to go a bit further try to at least assume people are somewhat rational beings capable of a basic level of understanding.

One thing I have noticed is that in Japanese culture the default position is to assume the other person is genuine and well-intentioned, where as in the UK and US it is to assume they are not to be trusted u

What I have been wondering about ever since the first stories about TSA employees giving children pat-downs is this: how many TSA employees are actually pedophiles, who have found a legal and sanctioned method of inappropriately touching children? Or more broadly, a legal and sanctioned method of inappropriately touching anyone? The TSA is allowing and ordering its employees to touch people in ways that would get an ordinary person arrested for sexual misconduct.

It's predictable though that no one likes the goons. The tragedy is they won't have any hate left over for former DHS head Michael Chertoff [wikipedia.org] who got them into the mess by lobbying for this scanner boondoggle. Of course the fact he made millions off them is completely irrelevant.

The difference is that the TSA employees who are performing the pat-downs signed up for the job knowing that they would be inappropriately touching people. A corrupt politician making millions of dollars violating our rights is bad, sure; but it is much worse to be the person who knowingly signs up for a job that entails something that can only be described as legally sanctioned sexual misconduct, which includes otherwise illegal contact with children. The TSA employees are just as responsible for this lu

There is no safe level of radiation - there are simply levels that don't significantly increase risk. It may well be discovered that hanging out by XRay sources isn't as un-bad for your health as previously assumed (perhaps due to not actually testing..) I'm so glad my tax dollars paid for all this tech and will now pay all the large sums that will get awarded in the inevitable law suits.. Yay.

I suppose it's time to get comfortable with the idea of intimate relations with TSA screeners. It wouldn't be so bad but for the lack of choice in who does the screening, the lack of cuddling afterwards and total absence of a commitment. It just makes the whole ordeal seem so tawdry.

Even if you bought into the bullshit about the scanners being safe (despite little or no testing), doesn't it seem a little obvious that something was up when they wouldn't let TSA employees were those little radiation badges that change color to indicate when you've had too much exposure?

That's a bit of a worry. I used to have to wear a dosimeter just because I worked in the same building as an industrial x-ray machine. The operators had a wear a dosimeter even though the machine was behind two brick walls with a foot of sand filling the space between the walls. You don't just throw the monitoring gear away because you think the sheilding is good enough, you keep it to confirm it is good enough. There were real time sensors with alarms as well but the role of the dosimeter badges was to

We need random TSA screenings in and out of congress and senate.No exceptions, everyone could be a danger to the legislative branch, the best we can do is a fast line for senators and congressmen but the shoes have to come off.

Precisely. If every senator and congressthing and DHS/TSA employee (right up to the department heads) were required to undergo full "enhanced screening" including grope and scan every single time they entered or exited their offices, I think they might sing a different tune. Hell, we should make a cable TV channel: all politician pat-downs, all the time, where the viewers on an Internet site vote for who gets a strip search and who gets a scan and who has to go back and do it all again. As it is, the privil

I actually talked about this with a TSA agent recently (during a pat-down). The trouble is that the X-ray "spot" in the scanners is actually fairly intense; the scanning machines are only safe if the spot in kept in motion., as it is supposed to be when in use. (The scanner is doing a raster scan, and looking for backscatter.) If there is any internal reflection, then someone outside the machine (i.e., a TSA agent) could get repeated exposures, which would not be good. The same might be true if people in th

Question: if the beam doesn't hit the dosimeter, will it read anything at all? As in, if the spot bounces off the inside of the machine and always hits the agent's calf because of where he's standing, and he gets skin cancer in his calf, would the dosimeter have detected that at all? Or is the reflection a wider beam than that?

On this page is offered a dosimetric badge service costing $160/year. At that level, the user return their badge each month, receiving a new badge. They are given a monthly result reading, which should be higher time resolution than needed for this application.

If the TSA employees really care, maybe 16 of them could each pitch in $10 for one badge to be worn by the person who runs the machine...

Seriously, how likely is it that cancer would be completely uniformly distributed?

When you get a geographic/profession based cluster, you can usually hypothesize that it's an environmental cause, a.k.a. the machines generating radiation that they stand next to. So yes, you are completely correct, but your logic is completely incorrect.

While I have no doubt these machines are the bane of our personal freedom, and may even be dangerous its also possible that cancer clusters show up randomly. They do in areas near cellphone towers, unrelated to radiation, simply because clusters happen randomly too.

Hm, Hm, Hm... I thought all the Fukushima threads had established that low-dose radiation is far from harmful, and actually promoting your health? Where are the nuclear proponents now? All I see in this thread so far is decrying of the evil government raining down destruction by means of scanning machines. Cognitive dissonance, anyone?

Some decades ago, X-ray machines were common. So common that you could go into a department store and get an X-ray to see how well your new shoes fit. Doctors routinely used continuous X-ray scanners (fluoroscopes) with dosages much higher and for much longer durations.

Once people started to suspect that X-rays could cause cancer, it was straightforward to find out. Not trivial, but straightforward. Follow a lot of people and look for a correlation between exposure and cancer. Lo and behold, there is an effect.

Once the effects were measured we could compare risks. One of the results was that the risk due to undiagnosed dental problems is far greater than the risk of cancer from an X-ray, so dental X-rays are a good trade-off.

Fast forward to modern times and we have scanners. There is no evidence to suggest that these devices are safe, or unsafe. The manufacturer has a *model* of what should happen with the dosages, and the consensus of opinion is that the devices are safe... except that the result is based on the model, not evidence. Pick different assumptions to get a different model and there may be a risk.

Some assumptions about the new technology are: a) The manufacturer is correctly reporting dosage, b) The radiation is blocked by the skin (or in reverse, the effects will concentrate in the skin), c) Exposures below a certain threshold pose no risk (versus, any exposure causes proportional risk)

To put this in perspective, it's instructional to look at the history of MRI machines. Despite the fact that there is no known mechanism for magnetic fields interacting with the body and causing problems (notwithstanding metal implants &c), the FDA cautiously required progressive testing of the machines before they were deployed for common use.

I approve of this sort of thing. It's one thing to believe that magnetic fields have no effect, but it's important to test things out before you try them on, for example, pregnant women.

In summary, there has been no testing of the TSA scanners whatsoever. Their entire claim to safety rests on their belief that they know how the radiation will affect living tissue, but they cannot back that up with evidence.

They are not scientists, and they have side-stepped the normal medical safety certification process that we take for granted.

Scientists make conclusions based on evidence, politicians make conclusions based on models.

Same here, but unfortunately a day will come when I am forced to fly, and the TSA knows it. The TSA knows that people cannot simply refuse to fly when their employers insist upon it, or when there is a family emergency, or when they want to travel across an ocean. That is why the TSA gets away with these attacks on our rights: there is no realistic chance of an effective boycott on air travel.

"Every traveler is a critical partner in TSA's efforts to keep our skies safe," Administrator John Pistole, said last fall. "And I know and appreciate that the vast majority of Americans recognize and respect the important work we do."

Tell your boss he can find some flunky to do the flying, 'cause you're not doing it.

And there's the flaw. The seat was still filled.

Plus, you've got no job. I cannot imagine a realistic situation when you could say something like that to someone who was your boss. If you can be replaced by a "flunky" you're not exactly senior in the company, and contrary to everyone's belief on slashdot, you are not a precious, irreplaceable asset to the company, you're a cog in the machine.

As a frequent flyer it is fairly easy to avoid the scanners. Many smaller airports don't have them, and they are too slow for the majority of larger ones and are often turned off or majority of people waved around. Over time you learn where the scanners will not be used. The sad part is most TSA agents are normal people that need a job. They are forced to stand near devices that may be safe if operating properly, but over time normal wear and tear will increase the exposure. As is normal with a slow acting, long term effect problem, owned by the government, it won't be acknowledged until the majority of victims are dead. Like nuclear submarines, have the TSA agents where dosimeter badges every day for a year. Lets see if there is a problem.

Heh, DTW does the opposite: they only use the scanners and only during busy hours will they open up the metal detectors to relieve foot traffic. Over the last 6 months, flying in and out of Detroit every week, I've only missed the scanners twice, perhaps three times.

I had a TSA agent one time tell me how safe the back-scatter devices are. I replied "If you have a PhD, why are you a TSA agent? Is work slow at the University?" He didn't like that at all.

Sorry, I opt for the pat down because until somebody with reputable credentials and thoroughly reproducible test results publishes something on the safety of these devices, I won't go into one.I go fly 2, 3 sometimes 4 times a week and I already subject myself to enough radiation just by flying.

I submitted [slashdot.org] this story a few months ago, but it wasn't picked up, so I guess now will be good time to recount the main facts:

A single scan is equal to 3-9 minutes of natural background radiation exposure and would raise the amount of radiation a person is exposed to on a 6-hour intercontinental flight by about 1%. As for cancer risk, 1 million people flying 10 times a week will have 4 additional cases of cancer (using current models of radiation-cancer association). This is compared to the 600 cases of cancer they will get from the flight itself and to the 400,00 cases these people will have over their lifetime.

I can't find the full article anymore (paywall), but the abstract is here [ama-assn.org]. It is interesting to note that the authors also wrote this:

In medicine, we try to balance risks and benefits of everything we do, and thus while the risks are indeed exceedingly small, the scanners should not be deployed unless they provide benefit—improved national security and safety—and consideration of these issues is outside the scope of our expertise.

The article also points out that since TSA officials do not allow outside scrutiny of the actual radiation levels of the machines, we cannot know if they perform as intended or if they expose us to more radiation. But still, I think they

Well, I do honestly agree with the letter that was published sent to Holdren last year by four scientists at UCSF regarding these devices and I believe until all their concerns are addressed that the technology is not safe. I haven't seen a public reply to this letter by the US Government.

Most atmospheric radiation goes right through your body. The rest is generally absorbed evenly throughout your body mass. The airport scanners concentrate ALL their emissions on the surface of your body, no more than a few millimeters deep.

These scanners probably are safer than people think, but according to those same current models of radiation-cancer association, more people WILL develop cancer and die from being exposed than if the scanners were not used. The question must be: does this increased risk

i fly twice a week. At RDU they are practically mandatory. i always opt out and ask to be groped but i see a lot of business travelers using them. I've always wondered why people that fly like me would ever want to go through that machine. it just seems silly. I much prefer to have the dude feel me up, heck i even moan a little just to encourage them.

Medium sized airports are the ones the are hardest to avoid the scanners. At a hub like ATL, DFW, DEN or ORD the lines are always too long to only use the scanners and pat downs. Plus it is easy, once you know the airport to not get in a line with a scanner. In CLT the C security checkpoint has no scanners, for example. The real problem is the effect is long term and ill defined. Busy business travelers want to get through security as quickly as possible, or arrive at the airport with minimal slack for

There are both x-ray backscatter and active millimeter-wave scanners in use for full-body security imaging. Even before the full-body scanners there were penetrating x-ray scanners in use for luggage, and the mere presence of those machines is worth some amount of dosage monitoring, radiation training, and periodic inspections. I'd demand the same from any machine that could kill (as does OSHA), even if it didn't use invisible death rays to do so -- if I worked inches from a big piece of industrial machinery I'd want to know the safety procedures, maintenance requirements and signs of eminent failure before I started working.

The millimeter-wave machines are probably safe, but it's a new technology and there is some evidence that there's a probabilistic risk of biological damage even without direct ionizing effects, so it's at least worth some study. It's probably not a big enough risk to avoid using it, particularly compared to the known ill effects of x-ray exposure, but given the cost of the machines we could probably divert some cash for a real safety study rather than just hoping.

The x-ray backscatter machines are actually sending out x-rays just like traditional x-ray imagining, but they are reading the reflected/scattered energy rather than the penetrating energy. But that doesn't change your x-ray absorption cross-section, and they rays that don't scatter off your skins are still absorbed someplace in your body or transmitted to the far side, just like in penetrative x-ray imaging.

So the cumulative risk from x-ray backscatter machines is real and verifiable with well-established science. Assuming the doses are as low as the TSA claims the risk is small, but it still exists. However, since there are virtually no controls or validation on either the intensity or the duration of dosage, other than the physical limitations of the machine and its use (i.e. the maximum power output of the x-ray tube, the amount of time you can convince someone to stand in the way of the beam, etc.), it's hard to say that we should trust the TSA on this.

It shouldn't be hard to run these machines safely, but the TSA has expressed in no interest in doing that. It would be trivial to provide cumulative dosage monitoring for the operators (which would indirectly protect travelers as well), and fairly easy/cheap to provide periodic validation of the proper operation of the system. We expect the corner gas station to keep their pumps verifiably calibrated, to monitor their storage tanks for signs of malfunction, to have mitigation procedures in place should there be some sort of failure, and to be strictly liable for most types of failures in their systems -- why isn't the TSA held to the same standard?

/ Also, risk vs. benefit is probably a worthwhile analysis, but even if there is a clear benefit there's no reason the TSA shouldn't have better safety procedures

Saying that these devices are "safe" is a misnomer. These devices will cause deaths even if operated properly, there is no denying this. The discussion is over weather or not the casualties will be statistically significant, or socially relevant.

The real problem is that too much of this stuff if just rushed out without proper review and oversight. There was a panic after 9/11 and a lot of companies jumped on the "let's get rich by having the government give us money" bandwagon. The government wanted this stuff quickly, not in 5 or 10 years down the road.

The general public on the other hand often mistakenly assumes that because the government is big that it must have people who look into these things or that there is a committee that vets this new

Tell that to the 5 unemployed job seekers for every job opening currently. And the people who work for TSA are probably the demographic most likely to have trouble finding a job. Now isn't really a great time to quit your job because you're so bothered that it doesn't produce wealth for someone else.

This never should have started.There is no principle of justice, morality, or reason that will stop the American government from harming its people and the rest of the world in order to benefit its politicians and business associates. The government is too corrupted and is beyond salvation. The only way to get it to do anything is by force. The only way to achieve that force is to raise awareness.

This never should have started.There is no principle of justice, morality, or reason that will stop the American government from harming its people and the rest of the world in order to benefit its politicians and business associates.

I think you're confused.

This is a fairly typical fear reaction. Politicians and government bodies feel that they need to be seen to be acting in order to avoid a future event, resulting in questions about their inaction. It's not some kind of conspiracy. It's the same kind of fear response that results in laws that say that if you've been arrested for having sex in public, you have to register yourself as a threat to your neighbors' children.

I worry more about the danger of putting my groin into these things. Will my children have leukaemia and other hereditary genetic damage. Where the hell is the damn nuclear regulatory commission on this? Because this is their mandate.

Nice troll. "Take one life to save one life." Remember, if this is a cancer cluster, and it is caused by something in the TSA environment, they're literally killing themselves so that you can feel a sense of security. And most would argue that you cannot prove the scanners are effective, thus you're trading their lives for imaginary safety. If you're willing to kill just to feel safe, wouldn't it be better if you just picked up a gun, went to $terroristsourcedujour and started shooting?

Who are these people that do not love to live in a Police State? The last few I have seen where in Libia and Egypt. Perhaps you think of a few individual Americans. The majority I see are people waving the flag and singing the the national anthem just like they learned at school.

The beginning of indoctrination not to doubt government. Best way to do that is when they are young.